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>The real question where and when to subsidize each. It makes no sense to build subways in rural Kansas that no one would ride, or new roads in Manhattan. I ca
by grardb 9y ago
>The real question where and when to subsidize each. It makes no sense to build subways in rural Kansas that no one would ride, or new roads in Manhattan.
I can agree with this to some extent, but the question is, "how can we do this without encouraging unnecessary sprawl?" I can understand the want for space, seclusion, etc., but at what cost? How do we build roads in rural areas that don't kill the environment while also not creating a ginormous network of roads throughout our entire country which allow tons of people to own cars and rely solely on them for all travel? I am not necessarily opposed to people living in rural areas, particularly because some of it is necessary (e.g. for farming), but for the most part, I think we'd be better off if most people lived in higher density areas. Not Manhattan-dense, but would it kill people to live somewhere with a population density of 10k/sqmi? I grew up in a town with 15k/sqmi and lived in a big house with a big backyard (and even a driveway!). We had good public transit.
> Sometimes it's more cost effective to just add a lane to the road.
I replied to this in another comment of yours, but this actually doesn't work.
>Sometimes the underlying problem is that real estate prices are too high causing people to have to commute too far and the only real answer is to build new housing.
A large part of the reason that real estate prices are high is because of cars. I live in Downtown LA, and within a 2-block radius of me, there are probably at least ten parking lots that could easily fit large apartment buildings with ground retail. To add insult to injury, they're all single-level lots, rather than multi-level structures. When you take into account the minimum parking requirements that are imposed on developers, the amount of space that freeways take up, how wide the roads are, and all the free parking on the streets, it's no wonder that housing costs a lot! In essence, the same thing that allows people to commute long distances in cars is what makes it necessary to do so.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago> How do we build roads in rural areas that don't kill the environment while also not creating a ginormous network of roads throughout our entire country which allow tons of people to own cars and rely solely on them for all travel? Nobody is actually proposing to build a bunch of new highways in rural areas. The real problem is congestion in cities. > I replied to this in another comment of yours, but this actually doesn't work. It does work, it just doesn't work linearly. You can add a lane and discover that there was already a lane's worth of unsatisfied demand. And maybe there were even two. But there most certainly were not 1,000,000 lanes worth of unsatisfied demand, and in most places there probably weren't even two. > A large part of the reason that real estate prices are high is because of cars. A two bedroom apartment is at least five times the size of a parking space, so the area allocated to parking is less than 20%. That is not the main source of the cost. Of course, minimum parking requirements are still ridiculous, because if landlords can attract tenants to a less expensive building without parking, why stop them? And is is requirements like that which combine with each other to cause high housing costs.